gavztheouch

How do you deal with the screw heads holding on the battens. I have screws every 400mm holding the battens on. Just wondering if they will be a problem when I come to screwing the cladding on. I haven’t done my battens yet so I could pre plan if nessesary.

Thanks Tosh, yes I’ve been in contact with metal solutions they are very helpful. The Glasgow depot is close to me. I liked the idea of cutting and folding my own cills. A future project of mine is to learn how to work the metal for standing seam roofs and cladding.

I have an open rainscreen. Bought the rainscreen from russwood after conversation with my BCO he confirmed the open rain screen is not a cavity and therefore we don’t need fire battens. However my architect thinks they are wrong and are arguing with the bco for me to put them in! I know they know how much it will cost but I hope they know how much work this will take if I have to remove all the battens to get access to the wood fibre to cut a channel round the house to receive a hard batten to take the expanding strip. This will comprise the membrane too. Nightmare. If I don’t do it properly then the whole exercise will have been a box ticking exercise. But then why challenge the original decision in the first place.

I have a metal roof made of green coat steel from sweden apparently it should last 50 years. Is this also a good material to make window sills from. I can get it up to 0.9mm I think.

Started dressing in the windows on the outside ready for the cladding. I’m using extoseal for the sill and wood fibre insulation around the windows with a wrap of membrane around the insulation. Take ages per window

My architect detail has the membrane taped to my foundation which is an insulated raft. It is taped with a tape that can be rendered over so it covered with the concrete render that covers the raft insulation. I’m not sure of the idea of taping the membrane to the raft as any water that gets behind it will be stuck.

My building control officer has told me I can use an open rain screen and therefore have no cavity barriers.

Hi I’m thinking about buying a roof rack to carry 4.8m timber on my van roof. It’s a standard van length (Peugeot expert) i think I need a full rack as the mounting points on my van are quite close together so a full rack will give extra support in the length. I think the rack is 2.6m long so I will have 2.2m of overhang to split between front and back somehow. The first job is to pickup some cladding battens which are 42mm by 42mm, they are 100 miles away and I will need to go on the motorway/dual carriage. Is it a bad idea to carry loads like 20 or 30 battons on a roof rack long distance. I have tried searching for pictures or folk discussing this online but I don’t seem to see anything. If they came off during transport it would be extremely dangerous

Hi I have some external doors to fit. My frame is 245mm studs with 60mm external wood fibre and then rainscreen cladding. My foundation is insulated raft and the concrete in the raft is the finished floor. I’m going to use flashing tape, it’s pro clima extoseal to flash the threshold. The door will sit on top of this flashing on packers. There will be a gap I was planning to fill. The architect suggested packing with structural grout but I was thinking something like sikaflex structural glue/silcone would be better. Lay it down on a bed of the stuff, and hope once it’s sets it should be solid underfoot. How do you seal your external doors to the weather under the door frame?

Thanks everyone a few good options here. Looks like it’s a sensible option to use stainless steel. just need to decide if I stick with the pressure treated spruce or ‘upgrade’ to thermopine. In theory the thermopine might be longer lasting but I guess it’s hard to prove without testing it myself for 50 years, which I can’t. My biggest worry was the screws rusting, I guess stainless helps there. @Duncan62 did you have any issues with the stainless screws snapping. im hoping for 50 years out of the larch cladding which I think is possible. Some of our shed doors at the farm are wood and still in good condition. Need to decide if pressure treated spruce can match the 50 year lifespan

Anyone else get nervous when it’s windy like this. My house is not up to full strength and every time the wind blows like today i think of all the things getting stressed by the force of the wind. I have a very exposed site and a lightweight construction which doesn’t help to calm the nerves.

Thanks Mark, I spoke to my warrant officer and he said I wouldn’t need fire battens as just like you said he would not consider it a cavity. My architect is arguing that he is wrong and I will need them.

Thanks @Duncan62 Can I ask what brand/ type you went for.

Hi I have some 47x50mm pressure treated battens (The green coated ones) My screws to attach the battens are 180mm heco-topix that hold on 60mm insulation too. They have a standard galvanised finish. Im worried that they won't last the hopefully life of the cladding about 50 years. apparently the copper in the pressure treatment will cause the screw to rust fast. A solution would be to use stainless screws (very expensive @ 180mm) or change to a non copper based treatment. batten. I have struggled to find decent battens at 50x50mm, most batten are made from crap wood. I guess I could have them milled from something naturally durable like larch but I assume there is a solution already out there or I am overthinking things again

Were they the green pressure treated variety? I have pressure treated but I noticed my screws are only mildly galvanised so they may not last with the copper in the treatment eating the zinc. Stainless screws would be good but I have external insulation so that would be a large expensive screw in stainless. Even the blue and red 25mm roofing battens are pressure treated with a copper based treatment which I think will shorten the life of the screws and nails.